Our little escape artist

Our precious little Scout decided the other night that she wanted to go exploring in our building, unbeknownst to us! Somehow, in the two seconds that the door was open when Gary & I arrived home, she slipped out right under our noses. As we do most evenings, there was a rush to get the groceries away and dinner on the table (most nights we are both starving by the end of the day). So, after cleaning up and unwinding in the living room, I realized we hadn't seen our little angel in a while. Sometimes she sleeps in the bedroom, so I really didn't think too much of it, until a search for her turned up empty.

Then panic set in.

It had been four hours since we had gotten home!!! I started to freak out and ran out the door to find her. We are on the 4th floor (actually the 5th floor, since here the ground floor is floor 0) of 7 floors. Our stairwell is open and wraps around the elevator shaft in the center of the building, so I headed up the stairs. And there she was, two floors up, crouched on the stairs scared to death. We were so lucky that she hadn't gone down the stairs. And although she still would have had to get out the front door, I hate to think of her getting out onto the busy street! So, now I'm obsessed with knowing where she is at all times, which drives Gary, and Scout, a little crazy.

By the way, the picture of her above was the first picture taken with my brand new Swiss cell phone! I had to prove that I was here legally (with my B permit) to get it and it's great! Super small, 2 mega-pixel camera with zoom & flash, video camera, MP3 player, FM radio, internet, yada, yada, yada... oh, and I can make phone calls on it too!

So last weekend we tried our hand at cross-country skiing. We live near one of the most beautiful cross country ski areas (according to everyone here), La Vattay in Monts Jura, which is just over the boarder in France. I really don't know what we were thinking since neither of us had ever done this before and we really didn't know what we were in for. We couldn't even ask anyone questions since we seemed to be the only ones who spoke English there that day. We were totally on our own!

After renting our equipment and purchasing a ticket (only 14 Euro... not bad!) we were ready to go. Too bad we didn't have a clue as to how to put ON our skis! For all you cross country skiers out there, you know that the boots are soft like SCUBA boots and you only clip in at the toe, since you need to be able to pick up your heal as you ski. It only took 5 minutes or so to get the silly things on, which happened purely by accident! Then we were really off... very... very... slowly.

After some trial & error and trying to copy everyone that glided right by us with the greatest of ease, we headed up the "beginner" trail. Although it took us entirely too long to finish, by the end we were really getting the hang of it. Of course we were slower than we should have been because we were laughing at ourselves the entire time! We had a really fun day and glad we gave it a try, but I think both of us will be sticking to the down hill from now on... it's much less work!

Actually, tomorrow we are heading to Zermatt (at the base of the Matterhorn) to do some snow boarding! In Zermatt you can ski into Italy from Switzerland, so we will be sure to bring our passports! Sorry to say, you will have to wait until next week for pictures of our place. Until then, have a great weekend!


Gary showing how it's done! But YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!


Get out of the way... here I come!!


Gary looking a little stunned... He can't believe we made it back to civilization!


Our "Mobility" car-sharing car. We signed up for a car-sharing service, which is way cheaper than renting a car, but we accidentally signed up for a "combi" car (I thought I signed up for a "compact" car), and we got this crazy thing! But it sure was fun to drive!